


Shatter

by lexosaurus



Series: Ectober Week 2019 [1]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Ectober (Danny Phantom), Ectober 2019 (Danny Phantom), Gen, Shatter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 06:35:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21175019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexosaurus/pseuds/lexosaurus
Summary: Danny had just been electrocuted four days ago.But that was okay. Because he was fine.Even if there was this weird pressure in his chest, and his skin didn't feel like his own, and his whole body felt cold and alien, and he kept tripping over his feet.He was fine.He was human.





	Shatter

Specks of water dripped down the ceramic plate, falling off its edges and colliding with the pools of water below. An old towel, held upright by shaking fingers, swept the surface of the plate in circular motions capturing the remaining water droplets, the ones too slow to escape the cotton prison before. The plate turned, and the towel continued.

Finally, the plate stopped moving. Fingers traveled along its surface, testing it for any damp impurities, before placing it off to the side among the other dried dishes.

Another plate was grabbed from the sink. This one too was sponged, rinsed, and dried in the same circular motions. Routine motions. All done by shaky, pale fingers.

Without warning, the plate slipped, tumbling into the sink and rattling hard against the metal surface. The sound echoed around the room, chiming like church bells on a cold night.

The shaky fingers froze. They flickered in and out of transparency. A pair of blue eyes squeezed shut as the fingers were forced back into their previous opaque state. An arm reached down into the sink and the fingers slowly picked the plate back up again, as if afraid it would fall through it. 

But that was impossible. Nothing can fall _ through _a solid object.

Impossible.

The fingers raised the plate higher, and blue eyes scanned the plate for any dents or chips. Any imperfections.

Other than its own.

There was nothing there. Nothing new, anyway. 

Pale lips let out a shaky breath, and a pair of ears listened closely for signs of any shouts or movement from the stairs. Signs that any other bodies might invade this space, inquiring about the loud noise.

But no footsteps sounded from the stairs. No voices travelled from the hall.

Good.

Fingers gripped the plate with a newfound tightness before resuming their circular motions. Cloth against ceramic. Round and round again until the plate was dry enough to join its brethren on the countertop.

Pale fingers, now trembling even more, brought the plate out of the safety net of the sink. The fingers could do this. If they just gripped tight, they could do this.

A cold feeling sparked in his chest, dancing down his arm like fireworks.

No...don’t...

_ CRASH _

“Danny?”

The fingers had betrayed the body. They were supposed to put the plate on the counter but now they weren’t there anymore.

_ They weren’t there anymore. _

“Danny? What happened?” 

Footsteps sounded from the stairs. 

No, he couldn’t let his family see. They couldn’t see what had happened. The fingers had disappeared and he didn’t know where they were and _ his body was betraying him where did the fingers go? _

“I—I’m fine, Jazz! Don’t come—Just give me a—”

“Danny honey?”

More footsteps.

He looked down at the wreckage. The plate had shattered, dusting the floor with dozens of tiny pieces. 

It wasn’t salvageable. No amount of glue could fix this. 

His fingers had ruined it. _He_ had ruined it. It was _ broken. _

“Are you okay?”

“What happened?”

“Danny?”

There were too many footsteps. Too many people. Too many voices. Everything was too _ loud. _

_ Something _ twinged in his chest, and he shuddered. His body was cold.He was _ so cold. _ There wasn’t a time in his life that his body had ever felt so cold, so _ alien. _

It was like it wasn’t even his body.

“Oh honey, what happened?”

He felt his head turn up, and suddenly he was looking at the faces of his parents and sister. Worry coated their features, their eyebrows drawn in and lips curved into a slight frown.

“I...I don’t…” 

Danny looked down at his fingers—those traitors—but to his shock, they were still there. They were attached to his palms like they had been there all along.

He curled them in, if only to make sure that they were really _ his. _But they were. They responded to his mental command, just like they always had.

“The plate...I don’t…”

He tried to gesture at it, but his arms felt cold and sweeping them through the air just made them feel _ colder. _

What was he supposed to do? How could he explain this?

Especially when he didn’t understand what was happening himself?

His mother threw up her (normal, human) hand. “Danny—wait! Don’t move yet. There’s shards all over the floor. You don’t have shoes on.”

“I—oh…”

“I’ll get the broom,” he heard Jazz say.

“Oh…”

“Danno, it’s no big deal!” came his father’s boisterous voice from above him. “It’s just a plate! We have a whole bunch of those!”

“Oh.”

“Here—broom.”

“Okay, honey,” his mother said. “Do me a favor and don’t move until I tell you to, okay?”

His body didn’t move because his _ human _ brain didn’t tell it to. But the body was cold and foreign and _ not his. _

“Danny? What’s wrong?”

His head raised, and he was met with the soft eyes of his sister. Her red hair was tucked behind its usual teal headband, and her face, though touched with uncertainty, was all but glowing with life.

“What’s wrong?” she repeated.

His head shook. “I’m fine.”

“It’s just a plate, sweetie! Nothing to be nervous about.” His mother gave him a warm smile. “It happens!”

“Yeah…”

“You sure you’re okay?” Jazz asked.

Danny tried to nod, but his chest constricted. His body felt as if it were plunged into the depths of the ocean, and he could almost _ see _ the sparks of electricity dancing throughout his veins. His body shuddered, and a cold breath escaped his lips.

What was that? He didn’t understand. It didn’t make sense. What was happening to him?

The lights were suddenly too blinding, and the ambient sounds of the room—the fridge, the buzzing from the lights, the gentle humming that always permeated the house from the various inventions lying around—were too much. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t _ be here. _

Nothing was right anymore.

“Danny?”

His throat felt tight.

“I’m tired. I’m just tired.”

“Why don’t you go to bed then. You father and I will finish the dishes tonight, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

He felt his body propel forward in the path that his mother had created for him. An escape route. One out of the kitchen.

Out of the cold.

But the cold kept following him as he ascended the stairs. As he entered his room. And as he fell onto his bed.

He fell because his body tripped on the ground. The _ solid _ ground. Because his foot couldn’t go _ through _the ground. That was impossible.

Either way, his body was on the bed now. He was safe here. He could pull the covers over his now-body, because it was different than the one before, and he was safe. Maybe the cold would leave him alone now. Maybe that pressure in his chest would go away now that he was safely under his blankets.

Maybe he would wake up and this nightmare would finally end.

The cold didn’t leave. The pressure on his chest didn’t lesson. It still pulsed to and fro, emitting sparks of chilling electricity into his limbs.

Another frosted breath escaped his lips, and he gasped.

He was just getting sick, is all. Nothing was _ wrong _with him. Maybe he was getting a fever.

That had to be it. That _ had _to be the explanation.

His eyes opened—they had been closed?—and he looked up. The room was dark, but if he looked around he could still see the model rockets and old movie posters decorating his body’s room.

No, _ his _ room. This was still _ his. _

Then why did everything feel so wrong?

He looked at the ceiling, and a glowing green figure stared back at him. It was shaped like a teardrop, and it seemed to have two small gray eyes and a little hole for a mouth.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. 

What _ was _that thing?

It stared at him with unblinking eyes—those _ were _eyes, right?

“Hello?” he whispered. 

It tilted its head curiously at him.

“Um…” 

He shook his head. He was going insane. Was he really about to talk to this clear hallucination? This glowing orb? 

It was probably just an ecto-contaminated bug anyway. Sometimes his parents contaminated food, so it would glow. Who’s to say a mosquito hadn’t gotten caught in one of their strange experiments as well?

It opened its...mouth...and cooed at him.

_ Ghost? _ It seemed like it was saying. _ Ghost? _

But that was insane. Ecto-contaminated mosquitos couldn’t talk. 

It was fake. Ghosts weren’t real. Whatever it was saying was all in his head.

“Go away,” he muttered as he shifted to his side. Because if he wasn’t looking at it, it didn’t exist, right?

It was just a hallucination. He was normal, a human. He just had a fever. He was a normal teenage boy with a fever and that’s why he kept dropping things and tripping over things and that’s why he felt cold and that’s why his body felt like it wasn’t _ his _anymore because he was sick he probably needed to see a doctor.

So why couldn’t he?

Why couldn’t he tell his parents what was going on?

How come he had been so quiet since he came home from the hospital?

He glanced over his shoulder, back up to the ceiling, but the glowing figure was gone. Of course. Because it was only a figment of his imagination. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly not any otherworldly creature.

He closed his eyes once again and tried to block it all out. Tried so hard to shut his ears off from all the sounds humming from his room or the wind scraping against his window. He tried to ignore the cold pressure from his chest.

He was human. This was _ his _body.

A chill swept through his skin and the blankets were no longer on top of him, shielding him from the cool chill of his room.

Maybe he just forgot to get under them. Maybe that was the reason they weren’t covering his body. It couldn’t be that they had just passed _ through _ his torso, _ through _his skin and muscles and bones. No, no way.

He was normal.

He was in a lab accident four days ago. His body was electrocuted. He felt his skin burn and his bones rip from his flesh.

But he was alive. He was okay.

He electrocuted with thousands of volts of ecto-energy but he was okay. He was still a human.

He had gone to the hospital, and the doctors had done scans of his body to make sure his organs were all functioning. Which they were. The MRIs and X-rays showed nothing wrong with his body. His heart rate was healthy. His blood pressure was healthy and normal. 

They had given him a clean bill of health. He was fine. 

He told himself he was _ fine. _

Even if the green light behind his eyelids tried to tell him otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for Ectober Week 2019! I will be attempting to do all days, though one I might do a song for I'm not sure. Either way, I hope you enjoyed! I had fun writing, and this very distant POV sort of style in the beginning was challenging yet rewarding to attempt!
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @lexosaurus for DP memes and chaos


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